Sonia Rykiel

If there was ever any doubt that the Sonia Rykiel woman dresses for herself, artistic director Geraldo da Conceicao drove that message home with a jacquard print scrawled with "moi." Of course, Madame Rykiel put words on her flattering knits long before ironic slogan sweatshirts became au courant, and da Conceicao revived the idea for the label's Pre-Fall collection. But moi is unmistakably declarative and invites zeitgeist-y commentary.

As da Conceicao sees it, though, a rose is a rose is a rose (he specifically cited Gertrude Stein), and to that effect, he insisted that he is just making clothes—whether jacquard sweaters covered in a grid of roses or bathrobe coats in yak hair affixed to a pliant base—and he delivered an accessible collection. To his credit, the knitwear permutations seemed more mature this time around and there was less futzing (elongated, scrunchable sleeves notwithstanding). While slender shoulders and tube skirts maintained an overall lithe line, da Conceicao clearly had fun incorporating the Mongolia-fur outer layers and attributed their extraordinary fuzziness to some quality time at the hairdresser. He ended the show with a grouping of peekaboo dresses in velvety knits, fulfilling every woman's fantasy of what it must feel like to wear an ultra-luxe shammy. The only misstep: The platform sandals clopped in a way that countered the cozy.